


Smoldering

by KByrd



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-17 21:56:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13668081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KByrd/pseuds/KByrd
Summary: She should have fallen in love with Bodhi, Jyn thinks, wrapped in his arms. He’s handsome, he’s nice, he’s brave, and even though he’s messed up like they all are, it’s in a sweet, fixable way, not frozen to ice like some people.Rogue One with more time, more space for character development ...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure that Rogue One needs a fix-it, but I kinda wanted more ... more interaction, more time for the characters to get to know each other. More time for things to happen. (You know what I mean). So this is what I ended up with.

The FIRST time Jyn Erso kisses Cassian Andor, they’re in an alley behind a bar during a pit stop for fuel on some tacky, trashy trading outpost that Jyn wouldn’t be able to find on a map.  
  
She’s sort of trying to seduce him and maybe trying to test him, this quiet, gentle, maybe-jailor of hers.  
  
She has tricked him back here and she surprises him with her ambush, grabbing the nape of his neck and pulling his face down to hers. And at first, he responds like any red-blooded male should, by sliding his hands around her waist and kissing her back.  
  
He tastes of alcohol, a harsh tang of mixed spirits and spices.  
  
Jyn opens her mouth to deepen the kiss and leans into him.  
  
And then Cassian pulls away and shakes his head softly. “No,” he says gently, looking at her with wary eyes.  
  
Jyn came of age in Saw Gerrera’s pirate den of thieves and saboteurs so she has a rather ‘transactional’ view of sex. She’s had good sex and ‘meh’ sex and deliberate nookie-in-exchange-for-something sex and she knows that seduction isn’t her forte, but still she runs her hands down his torso and presses her hips towards him.  
  
“Are you sure?” she murmurs. She reaches for the bottom of his long coat and he catches her wrist in his hand.  
  
“No,” he repeats firmly, a faint hint of a smile on his lips. “I’m your captain,” he explains. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”  
  
She scowls. That’s the worst excuse she’s ever heard of, but now he’s backing away politely.  
  
“Finish that drink?” he asks, tipping his head in the direction of the bar.  
  
She shrugs, not humiliated by the rejection, but thrown a little off balance by his words.  
  
He half-shrugs and walks back to the bar, not bothering to look back to see if she’s following.  
  
She watches him go, noting how quietly he moves, slipping quietly and unobtrusively between the trash cans in the alley. He glides like a cat, she thinks.  
  
Then she realizes that her surveillance is absent – the creepy android has been left at the ship supervising the re-fueling and now the captain has just turned his back on her. Maybe he doesn’t realize that there is a back exit.  
  
Jyn flees, running away through the alley, slipping down busy roads, zig-zagging and switching direction at every cross street. If she doesn’t know where she’s going, neither will he.  
  
She stops in one quiet alley to examine every stitch of clothing she’s wearing to see if the Alliance placed a tracker on her person, but she can find nothing. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one, there are ways to plant trackers that can’t be found. She’ll have to obtain new clothes as swiftly as possible.  
  
She uses her pickpocket skills to steal some paper credits out of middle-aged merchant’s pocket and snags a knife from a different vendor.  
  
She plots  
  
She has no papers – she’ll have to acquire some.  
  
She’s never been to this outpost before, but she’s been to dozens just like it. She can survive just as she’s survived before – for the past six years, she’s lived in dingy little dives just like this place, sometimes alone, sometimes making common cause with local gangs.  
  
There are risks – she’s also spent significant time in custody, bouncing from remand centres to jail to labour camps … if she gets caught this time, they’ll run her fingerprints and know that she escaped from Wobani – that will increase her sentence …  
  
But she’s done this before – survived …  
  
She wanders through the city, taking note of local customs, local transportation. She steals a pie and eats it messily, licking her fingers. There’s no guarantee of food when you’re perpetually hiding.  
  
She ponders Cassian’s words. She’s used to being a pawn for forces bigger than herself, from Saw’s pirates to various gang leaders expecting her to ‘earn her keep’. So far, she’s been quiet and obedient, biding her time while in Alliance custody, but she has no reason to see her situation as any different from what she’s faced before.  
  
She’s surprised that he suggested they were partners somehow. As if chasing down Saw Gerrera was a joint project instead of a wild goose chase that he’s dragging her around on.  
  
She wonders if Cassian will be in trouble for losing her. Part of her wants to sneer at his incompetency. He strikes her as far too gentle, too trusting to survive in this harsh world. And yet, he’s apparently well respected among the Alliance. And she’s seen for herself that he’s a good pilot and smart.  
  
She wonders what the seasons are like on this planet. Will she need to find shelter? She has time to figure it out – she’s done this before … survived.  
  
The oversized moon sets, giving the planet an eerie dark sky for a few hours before the suns start to rise. The market quiets, the bars close, the town sleeps. Jyn picks her way through the boxes and wrapped up market stalls like the feral cats hunting mice in the alleys.  
  
She can survive here – she’s done it before.  
…  
It’s dawn when she makes her way back to the ship, the inky black sky is starting to lighten as the first small sun peeks over the horizon.  
  
There’s no sign of Cassian, but the creepy ‘droid is sitting in the pilot’s chair.  
  
“Where have you been?” he asks fussily. “I asked Cassian, but he just said you might be late. Do you know what time this is?”  
  
Jyn shrugs off her grimy jacket and drops it lazily on the floor. “Dunno,” she answers dully. “I’m going to bed. Try not to wake me when you take off.”  
  
The K2 droid looks pointedly at the clothes on the floor. “I am not a ‘household cleaning’ droid,” he complains.  
  
Jyn ignores him and climbs into the sleeping pod.

**

They go to Jedha.  
Jyn sees Saw for the first time in years, watches the hologram of her father, fails to save Saw, fails to take the message with her and is dragged to safety by Cassian. The defector-pilot manages to escape as does the two odd-ball characters from the city – the blind warrior-monk and his … partner, the big, burly fighter.  
  
It’s a whirlwind of horror and emotion.  
  
By the time they are free of the smoke and dust and flying debris, the adrenaline has worn off and the humans are left to absorb their near escape from an exploding planet.  
  
The defector-pilot Bhodi appears damaged somehow, nervous and hyper and unable to focus clearly for more than a few minutes at a time. He sits on the floor of the shuttle, gazing at nothingness for long periods of time.  
  
Baze and Chirrut are quiet and thoughtful. They rest against each other, their heads bent to touch.  
  
The droid K2 complains about Cassian’s recklessness in escaping from Jedha.  
  
“You could have crashed us into a star,” he grumbles.  
  
“But I didn’t,” Cassian answers steadily.  
  
“Asteroid field, another ship …” the droid mutters. “I was almost done my calculations, now we have to go round the long way.”  
  
“We didn’t have another second,” Cassian sighs.  
  
The droid tut-tuts.  
  
Cassian sets the autopilot and makes the rounds, checking on each of his new passengers with quiet words. He is clearly used to dealing with trauma and shock.  
  
He hands Jyn a mug of hot tea and crouches down next to her. “Anything else you want to tell me?” he asks softly, his words hidden from the others by the background noise of the shuttle.  
  
Jyn shakes her head numbly.  
  
“Later then,” he acknowledges.  
  
He serves food even though everyone says that they’re not hungry and assigns them sleeping pods.

**  
Jyn wakes screaming and thrashing, panicking that she’s under attack and entirely uncertain of where she is … she feels confined and trapped. Her door is open, there’s someone in her room, reaching for her arm, saying something that she can’t make out. She lashes out and her fist connects with someone – which terrifies her even more. She scrambles in the bed to get away in the dark …  
  
“Shhh …” a man’s voice soothes, and then with a soft click, the room is lit by a faint green glow.  
  
“I TOLD you she was unbalanced,” comes the peeved off voice of the droid and ironically it’s his distinctive whine that snaps Jyn back to reality. She suddenly realizes where she is.  
  
“Jyn …” Cassian murmurs softly – the pod is small and cramped, but he’s as far away as he can get, a shadow by the door.  
  
Through the open door, she can see the droid. If he could express emotions, she has no doubt that he would be scowling in annoyance.  
  
Jyn sits up, gathering the tangled mass of sheets around her, gasping for breath, her heart thudding.  
  
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Cassian says softly, one hand keeping the door ajar. “I only meant … you were screaming … a nightmare.”  
  
“Did I hit you?” she asks.  
  
“Yeah,” he answers softly. Even in the dark, she can see him rub his nose. “Mean hook you got there.”  
  
Sweat is dripping down her back, her nerves are tingling; she can no longer remember the essence of her nightmare, only fading images of horror and a sense of being trapped. “I don’t like small places,” she says, her voice shaking.  
  
Cassian eases out of the pod.  
  
“Come out when you’re ready and I’ll make you a hot drink,” he offers. “We can figure out how to prop the door open if you prefer.”  
  
_No_ , she thinks. I need to lock the door – I need to keep the monsters out. But she doesn’t say anything, only nods as he slips out letting the door snick softly closed.  
  
She pulls herself together as best as she can, wraps the blanket around her shoulders and joins him in the tiny galley at the front of the shuttle. She knows from past experience that there will be no further sleep tonight.  
  
“Sorry I woke you,” she murmurs.  
  
“I hadn’t gone to bed yet,” he shrugs, fiddling with one of the kitchen devices.  
  
He’s lying, she can tell. He’s dressed for bed, in thin track pants and a long sleeved clingy shirt. His hair, never really neat, is tousled and sticking up messily. The dark shadows under his eyes are more pronounced than ever.  
  
She sips from the mug he hands her. “Is a hot drink your solution to pretty much every problem?” she asks, trying to make a joke.  
  
“Yup,” he agrees.  
  
“Cassian has nightmares, too,” the droid offers helpfully from his seat in the cockpit.  
  
“Kay …” Cassian says in a warning voice.  
  
“I don’t understand the purpose of nightmares,” K2 observes.  
  
Cassian pinches his nose.  
  
“Humans are SO embarrassed by them, why can’t you just turn them off?”  
  
“I wish,” Jyn mutters.  
  
“All they do is ruin your sleep, which is basically a re-boot for humans,” K2 continues. “Madness.”  
  
Jyn rolls her shoulders experimentally, feeling the tightness in her back and the ache from an old injury. She cricks her neck trying to work out the kinks. Cassian watches her with those eyes that miss nothing.  
  
“OK?” he asks.  
  
“A bit of a sore neck,” she admits. “Nothing to be done about it.”  
  
“I might be able to help,” Cassian offers.  
  
Jyn snorts. “I don’t think that there’s anything to be done,” she admits, “but I’m willing to try anything. What is your solution? Crystals, drugs … hot chocolate?”  
  
“Massage,” he says.  
  
Jyn trembles. She doesn’t like people touching her – how often has an innocent pat led to wandering hands and made her feel like she has to defend herself?  
  
“That seems like a very bad idea,” K2 announces.  
  
They both scowl at the droid.  
  
“It could lead to bad things,” the droid insists ominously.  
  
“It won’t,” Cassian snaps at the droid. “It won’t,” he assures Jyn.  
  
“It’s OK,” she assures him. She likes defying the droid. “Why don’t we try? I mean if you don’t mind ..?”  
  
She sits in a chair and Cassian stands behind her, lifting up her hair to press experimentally beside the vertebrae. His fingers are cold. “Let me know if anything hurts,” he warns her.  
  
His fingers travel slowly down her spine, pressing, moving in circles, working out sore spots. It feels magical. Sore spots fade away. Jyn sighs and suppresses a moan – she had no idea that her spine was so tight and tense. If she were a cat, she would be purring.  
  
“Where did you learn this?” she asks.  
  
“I’m a medic,” he says.  
  
“That’s not true,” K2 pipes up. “I mean it’s true that he’s a medic, but that’s not where he learned how to massage. He had a lover …”  
  
“Kay!” Cassian snaps.  
  
“And that’s why I’m opposed,” K2 grumbles. “You are both so touch starved and as primates, such grooming behaviours are …”  
  
“We are not primates!” Cassian says sharply.  
  
Jyn hardly cares. His fingers are now working back up her spine and it’s like each ache is fading away.  
  
“Humans ARE primates,” K2 insists, “and touching one another often leads to foreplay …”  
  
“ _Dios_ ,” Cassian swears, stepping away from Jyn.  
  
“No, no,” Jyn cries out. “Don’t listen to him!”  
  
Cassian glares at K2. “One more word out of you and I’m going to power you down for the rest of the trip,” he threatens.  
  
K2 sniffs disdainfully. “Then you would have to fly the whole trip and never get any sleep at all,” he counters. But he also turns back to the control panel.  
  
“Sorry,” Cassian mutters, his face grim.

“S’ok,” she assures him. “I’m not listening to him anyways.”

Cassian returns to work on her back and Jyn sighs and closes her eyes.


	2. NOT taking advantage

They go to Yavin and Jyn tells her story again and again to different rebel leaders. She repeats the story over and over again until it’s rote, practiced and smooth.  
  
“Are you sure that’s what the message said?” they ask her.  
  
She’s no longer sure of anything.  
  
There seems to be general consensus that she’s telling the truth. The problem remains what to do about her intelligence. No-one has any idea of where her father might be.  
  
“I have contacts,” Cassian insists. “I’ll put out the word.”  
  
“Be discrete,” the rebels warn.  
  
Jyn is assigned a spare, single bunk in an empty dorm. The base is well supplied – she can obtain fresh clothes and books and datapads. There’s lots of food – plain, but hearty and seemingly endless. Jyn prowls the base taking note of the security and exit plans. She’s impressed by their military capabilities – there are weapons galore and sessions on how to fight. The medical facilities are top rate. Communications, robotics, engineering … all of highest quality.  
  
She’s baffled by the non-military amenities: the cook-it-yourself kitchens, the bookclubs and the music bands.  
  
“People live here,” Cassian explains. “With their families. It can’t be just about war – there’s got to be reminders of life AFTER … To give people something to live for.”  
  
“And what do you do?” she asks. “What secret hobbies do you indulge in?”  
  
He smiles sadly. “Sometimes I join the yoga classes.”  
  
He lets her tag along on two short missions to nearby bases to talk to ‘contacts’ about the whereabouts of Galen Erso.  
  
Jyn watches and learns as Cassian befriends people. He’s quiet and thoughtful and nods as they chatter. His conversation partners fill uncomfortable silences with intel. Cassian looks dubious; they add details to convince him.  
  
Jyn figures out that often the quiet, unseen ones – servants and children are the best sources of information. It’s from a small girl that she bribes with candy that they learn about the Imperial soldier ‘convalescing’ in a nearby town. 

**

The SECOND time she kisses Cassian, they’ve been to a kind of nightclub with pounding music and flashing, blinding lights, a mob of swaying bodies.  
  
They’ve gone to collect intel and Jyn has got what she came for, but they split up to be more effective and it takes her a while to find Cassian.  
  
And she finds him dancing.  
  
She does a second take because Cassian is dancing, but in an odd way, very loose-limbed, not really matching the beat of the music. She’d assumed that his natural rhythm would be better. When she approaches him, he grins at her in a loose, goofy way that is so out of character that she wonders for a moment if this guy is merely a Cassian lookalike. But no, it’s really him.  
  
She slides in between Cassian and the girls he is apparently dancing with and wraps her arm around his waist.  
  
“Time to get out of here,” she suggests.  
  
She struggles to lead him through the throng and wildly dancing, swaying people. He has his arm over her shoulder and he’s leaning into her. Despite being rather slight, he’s surprisingly heavy. They escape out a side door into cool, foggy air and she leads him down the road until she can lean him against a wall and really look him over.  
  
His eyes are glazed and unfocused and he’s leaning against the wall as if he’s about to fall over. It’s not alcohol that’s done this.  
  
“I don’t feel so great,” Cassian admits.  
  
She examines him carefully, looking for the telltale imprint of a needle, but finds instead a sticker plastered to his bare skin, like a nicodern patch. She peels it off carefully and deposits it gingerly in a garbage bin.  
  
“Not a great mission,” Cassian mutters.  
  
“Maybe for you,” Jyn snorts. “But, I got what we came for.”  
  
He peers at her.  
  
“Good intel,” she assures him, not sure if he’s alert enough to understand. “I know where an imperial engineer is.”  
  
He grins. “That’s my girl,” he says.  
  
Jyn considers their options. They won’t make it back to the ship tonight in the state that Cassian is in so she should look for a hostel or pension …  
  
“I knew you’d come through,” Cassian says quietly. Then to Jyn’s shock, he leans into her and kisses her - a wide-mouth, messy, sloppy kiss that causes her to freeze in amazement.  
  
He pulls away, looking slightly confused. “Sorry,” he says. “Shouldn’t have done that.”  
  
“It’s OK,” Jyn assures him, her heart pounding. She wonders if the drug was some sort of aphrodisiac.  
  
“Been meaning to do that for a while,” he says owlishly, nodding seriously.  
  
“Huh,” Jyn mutters. It’s tempting to wonder what it would be like to kiss him back. Cassian has such a rumpled, too-sexy-to-shave smolder going for him. He’s probably a very good kisser when he’s not drugged.  
  
She won’t take advantage of him of course. Instead, she slides an arm around his waist and guides him to a cheap, local hostel.  
  
“My husband’s had a bit too much to drink,” she tells the receptionist, who snorts in disbelief but gives her a key anyways.  
  
She settles him on the edge of the bed with a glass of water while she unlaces his boots and helps him out of his jacket.  
  
“Stay,” he insists, reaching for her hand.  
  
“Of course,” she says soothingly. There’s only one bed after all and the whole point of sleeping here is to keep an eye on him.  
  
As soon as she slides into bed, he wraps an arm around her and pulls her close. “Don’t worry,” he says sleepily. “Won’t try anything. You’d clock me if I did.”  
  
“Damn right,” she agrees with a smile.  
  
“S’what I like about you,” he continues, slurring his words softly. “You fight like an alley cat.”  
  
It’s surprisingly cozy, lying wrapped in his arms. Jyn has little experience with love or long-term lovers, not to mention soft beds and relative safety. She’s used to being defensive and wary, watching out for unwanted advances and ‘liberties’. Yet, she trusts Cassian.  
  
She sleeps.

**  
Jyn wakes at dawn; Cassian sleeps late.  
  
Jyn uses Cassian’s communicator to report their position to K2 and goes out to find breakfast. The android is waiting for her when she gets back to the hostel.  
  
“I don’t understand your message,” he announces fussily as soon as she is within range. He might as well be wringing his hands. “Why did you sleep here instead of at the ship? It looks like a hovel.”  
  
Jyn sighs and leads him to the room where she and Cassian slept. She’s not sure whether Cassian will tell K2 about being roofied, but figures it’s up to him. She will not give K2 any further reason to worry.  
  
Cassian is lying flat on his back on the bed with a pillow over his face in the universal position of someone dealing with a hangover.  
  
“I brought you ginger tea,” Jyn says brightly.  
  
He grunts and sits up carefully, his hair messy and sticking up. She hands him a thermos with a local hangover remedy. “Thanks.” He sniffs it warily.  
  
“What is this?” K2 exclaims, looking around. “There’s only one bed. Did you …? Is that why …?”  
  
“Kay …” Cassian sighs, sipping the hot drink.  
  
“You did!” K2 exclaims. “What did I tell you? She’s crazy, unbalanced … entirely unsuitable!”  
  
Jyn grins in amusement; Cassian flicks a quick look at her and seems relieved that she’s not offended.  
  
K2 wags his fingers at Cassian. “Did you use protection? Now I’m going to have to re-stock because I’m sure everything you have is expired …”  
  
“Dios!” Cassian mutters and Jyn laughs. “Talk about ruining my reputation …”  
  
“I warned you about her …” K2 says darkly.  
  
Cassian stands and stretches. “Enough!” he says firmly. “We got the intel we need. Now we have to get back to the base.”  
  
K2 continues to mutter about ‘responsibility’ and ‘weird human needs’ but he leads the way back to the ship.  
  
“Are we going back to the base?” Jyn asks. “I thought we’d go check up on this engineer.”  
  
“Not me,” Cassian says curtly. “He’s located on a planet that has a warrant out for me.”  
  
“Actually, a ‘shoot on sight’ order,” K2 pipes up.  
  
“I have contacts there,” Cassian assures Jyn. “So don’t worry, we’ll find him.”  
  
He hasn’t asked for details about the night before.  
  
Jyn is not sure how much he remembers.  
  
He doesn’t seem uncomfortable. He isn’t being shifty or evasive. Or apologetic. He’s just … Cassian.


	3. sexy times

They go back to base and Cassian does what he does best, talks to the right people, touches base with a contact (aka spy) to get more intel. They are getting closer.  
Jyn plots.  
  
  
She has another mission in mind that has nothing to do with chasing down her father.  
  
Subtlety is not her forte. She doesn’t think that she needs any. She could wait, play a long game, but they’re in the middle of a war and Jyn has never been one for patience.  
  
She checks that K2 is out of the way and then goes to knock on Cassian’s door.  
  
“It’s open,” he calls, in response to her knock.  
  
Jyn steps into Cassian’s room – it’s like a university dorm before the student moves in – bare, utilitarian, and functional. Offhand, she can see no personal touches, no photos or holograms.  
  
Cassian has a tool in hand and is fiddling with a mostly dismantled droid on his table. Because, of course, in addition to being a smoking hot spy, a pilot AND a medic, Cassian is also a pretty competent engineer. He re-programmed an imperial K-unit after all.  
  
“What’s up?” he asks lightly. “Got news?”  
  
“No,” Jyn answers stepping closer. “I wanted to follow up on something that happened on our last mission.”  
  
“Uh huh?”  
  
His eyes flick to the white blouse she’s wearing and back to her face, but Jyn knows (because Cassian is VERY observant) that he’s noticed that she’s left it buttoned lower than usual. From his angle, he can probably see right down her shirt.  
  
“Do you think that the drug you were slipped had a funny effect on you?” she asks lightly.  
  
“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”  
  
Jyn shrugs, smiling. “So it wasn’t a truth serum?”  
  
“I don’t remember saying anything … revealing,” he says carefully.  
  
God, he’s got beautiful eyes. They crinkle at the corners as he peers thoughtfully at her.  
  
“Do you remember saying that you liked how I fight?” Jyn prompts him.  
  
“Ahh …”  
  
“Like an alley cat,” she teases. She very deliberately unbuttons one more button on her blouse and steps a little closer.  
  
“It was meant as a compliment,” he murmurs. “Highest praise, I assure you.”  
  
God his voice is so lovely – that accent melts her heart.  
  
He very carefully puts the tool in his hand away and actually leans towards her. “Are you finding it warm in here?” he asks with a smile.  
  
Jyn grins. “Maybe. Are there rules about … you know? Among rebels?”  
  
“Fraternization? We’re not military,” Cassian says softly.  
  
Jyn unbuttons another button.  
  
He catches her hand. “Jyn …”  
  
“You want this too, don’t you?” she asks softly. His face is mere inches from hers. “You kissed me.”  
  
“I did,” he agrees. “Maybe I shouldn’t have.”  
  
“Why not?” she asks. “We’re both adults.”  
  
“We haven’t known each other very long.”  
  
“It’s wartime,” she counters. “How long is long enough?”  
  
“So that’s it?” he asks, his voice harsh. “It’s wartime, so we just …?”  
  
“That’s not what I meant,” Jyn snaps. She takes a deep breath. “I mean I like you, I think you like me. I don’t just … I’m not in the habit of running around … I just think what are we waiting for?”  
  
There’s a frozen moment then Cassian leans forward and kisses her.  
  
Jyn grabs at his shirt and pulls his body towards hers, opening her mouth and reaching up to tangle her fingers in his hair.  
  
And the THIRD time, they kiss, it’s amazing because just as she’d suspected, Cassian can kiss. He’s damn good. He makes her tremble from head to toe.  
  
Jyn reaches behind to sweep the jumble of robot parts off the table, but he catches her hand. “This way,” he says, inclining his head towards the bed against the wall.  
He flips a switch and the lights dim. Then Cassian cradles her head carefully as he lays her down.  
  
Jyn yanks impatiently at Cassian’s shirt. He laughs and kisses her while reaching with one hand to unbutton his shirt. Cassian reaches for the clasp on her bra and checks, “This OK?” She arches her back and he manages to unsnap her bra with a delicate flick that speaks of some practice.  
  
“Hell yeah,” she whispers, wanting, wanting everything all at once. She digs her nails into the hard muscles of his arm, curls her fingers into his hair, arches her back, and bites at his collarbone.  
  
Cassian is cooler, calmer. He kisses her slowly and deliberately, his stubble raspy against delicate skin. His tongue and lips trace patterns on her skin.  
  
Jyn is impatient, wanting, needing to be touched everywhere at once. Her skin is on fire as bare skin slides against bare skin.  
  
Jyn fumbles at his jeans, unfastens them, and reaches to touch him.  
  
Cassian groans, burying his face into her neck, rocking his hips …  
  
And suddenly there’s a crash as the door is flung open.  
  
“Cassian!” a familiar mechanical voice exclaims.  
  
Cassian sighs. “Fuck off K2,” he says, his lips on Jyn’s neck.  
  
“They’ve found Erso!” the droid exclaims.  
  
Jyn giggles and pushes Cassian to give her some space. He shifts his weight off her, sliding off to the side so he can turn and address K2 over his shoulder. “I wasn’t aware she was missing.”  
  
“What are you doing?” K2 asks, flipping a switch so the room is flooded with bright light.  
  
“Ah!” Cassian complains, shielding his eyes. “Turn the lights off!”  
  
“Are you?” the droid steps closer, peering at them. “Are you engaged in … intercourse?”  
  
“No!” Cassian snaps, reaching for a shirt to cover Jyn.  
  
“With Jyn Erso?” K2 continues, his voice registering surprise and maybe disapproval. His eyes meet Jyn’s. She waves merrily at him.  
  
“Kay …” Cassian murmurs irritably.  
  
“You told me nothing was going on,” the droid complains, sounding suspiciously whiney. “That I didn’t need to re-stock …”  
  
Cassian’s communicator suddenly beeps, distracting them.  
  
“That will be ‘command’,” K2 says with a self-satisfied nod. “Remember, I told you first.”  
  
“What?” Cassian scowls.  
  
“They found Galen Erso,” the droid clarifies.  
  
“They found Papa?” Jyn asks.  
  
Cassian gets up off the bed, yanking his jeans up, and reaches for the communicator.  
  
Jyn sits up, pulling Cassian’s shirt up to cover her chest although it seems odd to worry about modesty in front of a robot.  
  
“Andor here,” Cassian answers the communicator. He stands with his back to Jyn, head inclined, listening intently. It’s a clearly military stance. “Yes sir,” he says quietly.  
“Of course, sir. That sounds good, sir.”  
  
Jyn takes note of his bare torso, observing that he is lean and hard. He has an old scar on his hip – maybe a blaster wound, and a faint spray of freckles on his shoulders.  
  
She very deliberately does not look at the droid who is regarding her with intensity.  
  
Cassian finishes the call and turns around, his eyes meeting Jyn’s. “They found him,” he says.  
  
“I told you that,” K2 says smugly.  
  
“Are we going to go get him?” Jyn asks anxiously.  
  
“Yup,” Cassian nods. “Meeting in ten minutes to discuss extraction.”  
  
“I’m coming with you,” Jyn says firmly.  
  
“Of course.” And then he turns and scowls at K2. “Would you please get out of here?” he says harshly. “Leave my room and don’t come back in until I give you permission.”  
  
“Are you going to finish with Jyn?” the droid asks. “I could get you some non-expired protection from the dispensary, but by then you’ll be late …”  
  
“NOT necessary,” Cassian snarls, his teeth gritted.  
  
“You know it’s not just for contraception,” the droid mutters, “considering you don’t know her history, who she’s been with …”  
  
“OUT!” Cassian snarls. “If you don’t start obeying my orders, I will reprogram you.”  
  
“Well don’t take too long,” K2 mutters as he leaves. “You can probably finish in seven or eight minutes, which realistically is all you have time for. You know the senators won’t appreciate being left waiting while you indulge your weird human needs.”  
  
Cassian winces as K2 shuts the outer door behind him.  
  
Jyn giggles.  
  
“If I have to give a ‘sex talk’ to my droid, my head will explode,” Cassian says grimly.  
  
Jyn smiles and stands, reaching up to kiss him.  
  
Cassian kisses her back, his hands sliding across her hips and up her back.  
  
“Rain check?” he murmurs into her hair.  
  
“We’ve got ten minutes,” she teases. “Well almost. I hear that’s all you need.”  
  
He laughs. “That damn droid. My reputation is shattered.”  
  
Jyn kisses him again and he pulls away reluctantly. “Meet you at the ship?”

**  
As it turns out, time is tighter than expected. Rebel forces have intercepted communication that Krennic is on his way to Eadu to meet with Galen Erso. They don’t know why – he might be going to praise him, or criticize him, or remove him from the lab, but now it’s a race against time to rescue Erso before the imperial ship arrives.  
  
Jyn climbs into the shuttle and is surprised to find Bodhi in the pilot’s seat as well as Chirrut and Baze buckling themselves in to seats in the back.  
  
“Spent half my career flying in and out Eadu,” Bodhi explains.  
  
Chirrut taps his staff on the floor of the shuttle and nods wisely. “And I am guided by the force which commands me to join this mission.”  
  
“I just do what he does,” Baze mutters. “Gotta keep him out of trouble.”  
  
K2 is plugged into one of the shuttle’s ports. “Cassian told me to be here,” he says.  
  
Jyn glances over her shoulder. Cassian was almost at the ship, but he’s been called back for a conversation with one of the commanding officers. Jyn hasn’t spent enough time at base to have a clear idea of rank, but she recognizes this man as one of the shadowy, always watching officers. She notes how Cassian stands respectfully, his back to the shuttle, listening intently to last minutes orders.  
  
K2 interrupts her observation. “You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve been instructed to be ‘discrete’,” he announces.  
  
“What?” Jyn frowns. Bodhi swivels in his seat to look at Jyn.  
  
“About … you know,” the droid says, nodding seriously.  
  
Jyn bites her lip.  
  
“I won’t tell anyone anything,” K2 assures her.  
  
All three men peer at Jyn in curiosity.  
  
“Maybe you should just stop talking,” she hisses at K2.

The trip to Eadu is scheduled to take about twelve hours so the crew eats a meal and discusses the extraction plan and then Cassian suggests that they ‘hit the sack’.  
“K2 will monitor the flight and wake us if we need to do anything.”  
  
“That’s my role,” the droid mutters.  
  
“And we need sleep to be in top form,” Cassian continues.  
  
Chirrut and Baze link hands and make their way together to the sleep pods below decks, but Bodhi objects. “I’m too wired,” he says. “Can never sleep on board. How about a game? Cards? Strategy? Chess?”  
  
“I’m going to bed,” Jyn says firmly. “Which pod?”  
  
“B2,” Cassian indicates.  
  
These shuttles have sleeping pods tucked into unobtrusive nooks and crannies. They’re mostly small and cramped, but B2 is the captain’s pod so it has (marginally) more room than others. Jyn climbs under the covers on the narrow cot. She dozes, listening to the soft hum of the engine.  
  
It’s late when Cassian finally enters the pod.  
  
“Jyn?” he asks softly, sitting carefully on the cot.  
  
“Mmm.”  
  
“You still want me to … ah?”  
  
“Yeah,” she whispers. It’s dark in the pod, the only light from a faintly glowing strip of green on the floor. “Couldn’t talk Bodhi into finding his pod?”  
  
Cassian shakes his head. “Finally just said that I needed my sleep and left him with K2, babbling about circuits and passcodes.”  
  
She can hear him quietly stripping off his clothes in the dark then he’s climbing into bed. He reaches for her, kissing her softly, his hands sliding up her body.  
  
“Your droid left us a gift on the bed,” she whispers cheekily. “A whole box of ‘assorted’ …”  
  
“Oh fuck him,” Cassian grumbles, his lips on her jaw. “I mean you want me to use one, I will, but for your information, I’m up-to-date on all my shots.”  
  
“Me too,” she whispers. “Took advantage of the medical facilities on base.”  
  
“So we’re doubly-protected,” he smiles.  
  
Jyn trembles.  
  
They kiss; Jyn peels off her clothes so they are both naked, bare skin against bare skin. Cassian covers her body with his own and kisses her slowly.  
  
Jyn’s never had the luxury of time. She’s never made love in a soft bed, and rarely had the privacy of a locked door. The only way she knows is hard and fast and now. She rakes her nails across his skin and pulls him closer. She bites his collarbone. She reaches for him.  
  
He catches her wrist and pins it to the bed. “What are you in such a rush for?” he asks softly, his other hand sliding down between her legs. “We have hours.”  
  
Hours. She can’t imagine.  
  
She’s fucked men in door frames and on dirty, grubby mattresses, in prison and in the backseat of a cruiser. She’s used to fumbling to push clothes aside, used to harsh words, and a desperate pounding rush to reach fleeting pleasure.  
  
Cassian has other ideas.  
  
Oh hell, does he ever.  
  
He kisses her and touches her EVERYWHERE, slow and deep and lazy until she’s writhing and biting back sobs. She knows about erogenous zones – hell, she’s spent plenty of time in women’s prisons, but Cassian turns her whole body into a quivering mass of desire. Everywhere he touches sets off mini fireworks.  
  
He whispers sweet nothings into her ear and she thinks that she’s never heard an accent so sexy.  
  
He does things with his tongue and teeth that she’s only heard rumours of.  
  
His beard tickles delicate skin.  
  
She tangles her fingers into his hair and nips at his throat and wraps her legs around his until they are both sweaty and trembling.  
  
And afterwards, they lie entangled, damp, still quivering with aftershocks.  
  
Jyn falls asleep in his arms.


	4. Betrayal

Despite Bodhi’s assurance that he’s intimately familiar with Eadu, the flight across rough territory to their destination is terrifying. They fly their shuttle low, close to the ground to avoid radar. It’s pouring down with sheets of rain and the wind comes whistling over the rough terrain and between the canyons like a living thing that seeks to knock the shuttle out of the sky.

Jyn buckles in and grips her seat arms tight as Bodhi and Cassian struggle to maintain control.  
  
K2 grumbles and flips switches and occasionally announces his analysis of the odds.  
  
“Shut up,” Cassian growls at him to no avail.  
  
“The depot is just over there,” Bodhi points.  
  
And the shuttle clips one of the rocky outhangs. There’s a spark, the engines whine. Jyn closes her eyes and prays to a god she does not believe in.  
  
The shuttle comes crashing down into a valley, bumping along the ground, sending up sparks and shedding bits of metal before coming to rest in a swampy dip.  
  
Cassian is climbing out of his seat before the shuttle has stopped vibrating.  
  
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he announces, pulling heavy raincoats from a storage bin. “Bodhi and me, we’re going out to take a look. The rest stay here for further directions.”  
  
Jyn stands. “I’m coming with you.”  
  
“Not now,” he snaps. “Later. Maybe. We’ll see what’s going on.”  
  
Jyn sits and waits, listening to the rain plunk heavily on the skin of the shuttle. K2 fiddles with the electronics.  
  
Baze and Chirrut confer in soft voices.  
  
“What did you say?” Jyn asks.  
  
Baze scowls. “Cassian,” he grumbles. “Seemed fine to me.”  
  
Chirrut shakes his head. “The force swirls around him – so conflicted. He was happy, relaxed earlier. Now he is swathed in darkness.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Jyn asks urgently.  
  
The blind monk-warrior turns his sightless eyes to her. “The force moves darkly around a man who is about to kill,” he says.  
  
“You’re not a real Jedi,” Baze mutters.  
  
“Cassian’s rifle _was _set to sniper configuration,” K2 pipes up unasked.__  
  
Jyn’s heart thuds. She grabs a raincoat from the storage unit and makes to leave.  
  
“Where are you going?” K2 asks.  
  
“To find papa,” she says firmly. “That’s what we came here for, right?”  
  
The storm is brutal – cold, wet and windy. Jyn finds her way to the edge of the ridge and peers around. There’s no sign of Cassian and Bodhi, but a path to the platform across the valley is clear as day. Well, it’s long and wet and difficult to climb, but it’s obvious enough how to get there. She wishes she’d brought a grappling hook or binoculars, but she puts the weather out of her mind and makes her way across the swinging bridge.  
  
Still no sign of Cassian or Bodhi.  
  
The storm renders her deaf and blind. She pauses and looks around. No sign of guards.  
  
She’s reached the ladder when an imperial ship comes zooming in. She hides her face, pressing against the cool, damp stone as it appears to hover just above her on the platform that she is heading for.  
  
The ship lands on the platform above and Jyn resumes her climb.  
  
Up and up she goes, her lungs burning, her hands slipping on the damp rungs. She’s almost at the top when she hears the ra-ta-tat of blaster fire aimed at multiple targets. She’s spent enough time on firing ranges and actually under fire to interpret what she’s hearing – it’s an execution, not a fire-fight.  
  
And suddenly, lighting up the dark sky, come fighters, small bombers, their engines whistling through the storm.  
  
Jyn ducks by habit, recognizing them as alliance ships.  
  
There’s chaos on the platform as she climbs up and grapples with a distracted guard. She looks around, taking stock. Still no sign of Cassian or Bodhi. There are imperial troops, and palace guards, and scientists and engineers – peering nervously up at the sky, cowering in the dark, anxiously running around in confusion.  
  
Jyn peers through the rain, seeking one specific person. “Papa!” she calls.  
  
One man stops, turns, peering into the dark in Jyn’s direction.  
  
There’s a firefight in the sky – the darkness is shattered by blinding flashes. Engines scream, ships twist and turn, zipping in and out of sight.  
  
Jyn never sees the plane that drops the bomb. An eerie silence falls over the platform for a moment as if all the air has been sucked away. More by instinct than anything, Jyn dives next a wall of metal crates and clings as the ‘whomp’ of an explosion blasts across the platform.  
  
She comes to, spluttering at the rain splashing across her face. No idea how long she’s been out. She rolls over, takes stock of her body – banged up and bruised, but no major injury. She staggers to her feet. There are bodies all over the platform, some terrifyingly still, others, like Jyn stirring, climbing to their feet.  
  
The sky is once again silent.  
  
Jyn staggers towards where she last saw her father. He was wearing a dark uniform, but here everyone looks the same, their white coats darkened by rain and blood and hidden by the darkness anyways.  
  
“Papa!” she cries.  
  
And suddenly she sees him, crumpled in a messy way, one leg bent under his body. She runs to him, sliding to her knees next to him, turns him gently to his side.  
“Papa,” she whispers.  
  
His eyelids flutter and her heart thuds.  
  
“I’m here,” she tells him. “It’s Jyn. I’m here. Here to take you away to safety.”  
  
His breath rattles ominously, but he raises one hand to her cheek. “My Stardust?” he croaks.  
  
“I got your message,” she babbles. “Bodhi, he did it. He gave us the hologram.”  
  
Galen Erso smiles, a bloody grimace. “Never doubted …” he rasps. He struggles to breathe. Blood drips down his chin.  
  
“Relax,” she says urgently, looking around for something to use as a stretcher or sling.  
  
“No, no,” he gasps. “It’s important … essential to destroy … it’s a terrible, terrible …”  
  
“I know,” she soothes him.  
  
“The plans … the plans … I sabotaged it. You can destroy it.”  
  
“I know,” she say desperately. “But we don’t where they are.”  
  
“Scarif,” he wheezes. “Tower … data vault.”  
  
Guards are up now, gathering the living, guiding a man in an imperial uniform on to the ship that is neatly parked on the platform. Jyn wonders if she should shoot him. She has her blaster in hand when a brief burst of blaster fire to one side forces her to cover her father’s limp form with her body.  
  
People are yelling now.  
  
The ship is firing up its engines.  
  
There’s more chaos on the platform, and uneven bursts of blaster fire.  
  
“Jyn!”  
  
She whirls and spots Cassian, scrambling, running low to the ground, a blaster in one hand. He fires wildly at Stormtroopers who are just now emerging from the depot. He slides up to her and grabs at her hand. “Come with me!”  
  
The ship lifts off, struggling in the crosswinds. Its engines shriek.  
  
“I can’t!” she yells at him.  
  
The downdraft from the plane whips the air around them. Jyn grabs at her father’s form, fighting to keep them from being tossed off the platform.  
  
“He’s injured!” she yells.  
  
Cassian presses his fingers under the jawline of Galen Erso and shakes his head. “He’s gone!” he shouts.  
  
“No!” she screams. “He was talking to me.”  
  
Cassian presses her hand to Galen’s chest. It’s slick with blood and soft, caved in as if the rib cage has shattered.  
  
“The bombers are coming back!” Cassian yells. “We need to go now!”  
  
She follows him, ducking blaster fire from the Stormtroopers. The imperial ship zooms off, but the sky is alight again with the twinkling, flickering lights of incoming bombers.  
  
“Go, go!” Cassian swears and they slide down the ladder, half clinging, half falling.  
  
They hit the ground and run across the bridge even as the depot is lit up with a fireball.  
  
Bodhi has the shuttle up and running, its ramp down. Baze and Chirrut come running from the other direction and climb into the shuttle just ahead of Jyn and Cassian.  
  
“We’re in!” Cassian calls to the cockpit. “Go!”  
  
The ramp closes even as the shuttle lifts off.  
  
The silence inside the shuttle is shocking after the noise and chaos of the battle. Bodhi and K2 flip switches, the shuttle hums, the stars outside the window blur and suddenly they are out of danger.  
  
Baze and Chirrut sit, slowly taking off off their sodden garments. Jyn takes a deep breath and looks at the blood on her hands – her father’s blood.  
  
Cassian peels off his wet clothes and dumps them unceremoniously in a storage bin.  
  
Jyn steps up to confront Cassian. “You lied about why we came here and you lied about why you went up alone,” she says coldly. “Right? You couldn’t extract him from across the ridge; you could only shoot him.”  
  
Cassian grits his teeth but doesn’t deny her accusation. “I had every chance to pull the trigger, but did I?” He looks away.  
  
Jyn is close to tears. “You might as well have. My father was living proof and you put him at risk. Those were Alliance bombs that killed him.”  
  
“I had orders,” Cassian responds quietly. “Orders that I disobeyed. But you wouldn't understand that.”  
  
Jyn trembles with fury. She clenches her fists. It occurs to her that she could just shoot him …  
  
As if he can read her mind, Cassian moves, as swift as a cat, and pins her against the wall of the shuttle. He removes her blaster from its holder and tucks it into his own belt at the back. Then he ruthlessly frisks her, removing each weapon. He even finds the tool tucked into her bra that most well-mannered men miss.  
  
“There will be no mutiny on my ship,” he says firmly. He steps back and looks at Baze and Chirrut. Even Bodhi in the pilot’s seat has swiveled to watch the drama.  
  
“You’re in shock,” he says gently. “I get that. I won’t write you up for this.”  
  
Jyn pushes him away. “I can’t believe you did that after we … after we …”  
  
“Go lie down,” he suggests. “We’ll talk later.”  
  
“You can't talk your way around this,” Jyn snaps.  
  
“I don't have to.”  
  
He turns his back on her and climbs into the cockpit.  
  
Jyn clenches her fists in rage, fighting off tears. Everyone else turns away, leaving her to her fury and grief. She climbs down into the lower decks and hesitates at the door of the pod – Cassian’s sleeping space.  
  
She climbs into the bed, still soaking wet and bloody, wraps herself in a blanket and cries until she can cry no more.

**  
At Yavin, they are separated and asked to tell their stories to a small group of officers. Jyn is not clear on the difference between a briefing and an interrogation – all this one is missing is the single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling.  
  
She’s grappled with what she’ll tell the alliance knowing that they are responsible for killing her father, but in the end she tells them of his dying words. She’s angry and she’s no longer loyal (if she ever was) to the cause, but she can’t be so petty as to deny the rebel forces crucial information.  
  
Sadly, they seem disinclined to understand the importance of her information.  
  
“Where are the plans?” one woman asks AGAIN.  
  
“Scarif,” Jyn repeats. “In a tower.”  
  
“Captain Andor didn’t report hearing the message.”  
  
She thinks of him running frantically across the platform, panic in his eyes. Can you fake that kind of fear?  
  
“He arrived later,” she says dully.  
  
“What format are the plans in?” a man asks carefully, his brow furrowed.  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“How big is the file?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“Seems suspicious,” one whispers to another. “Only one to see the hologram, only one to hear the message … from her father no less.”  
  
Jyn grits her teeth. “If you hadn’t bombed the place,” she hisses. “Maybe he’d be here to tell you himself.”  
  
The woman regards her seriously. “We’re so sorry for your loss,” she says gently.  
  
“It was alliance bombs,” Jyn says harshly.  
  
“It was mis-communication,” the woman explains. “We had word that you were … not in the vicinity.”  
  
Jyn notices a twitch from the man sitting to her right. If she hadn’t been trained to observe so carefully, it would have gone unnoticed, but it tells her something. There’s a rift among alliance members.  
  
They ask the same questions again. They want her father’s exact words. “He said tower? Nothing more?”  
  
They hum, they shrug. Jyn wants to scream. “We will consult,” they tell her.  
  
She wanders down to the cafeteria and runs into Bodhi picking through the bakery items. It’s the middle of the night, but there is always food on base.  
  
“They wouldn’t listen to me,” he says sadly. “Imperial defector.”  
  
“Not me either,” she agrees as they walk back to the sleeping areas. “Rebel scum.”  
  
A figure steps out of the shadows. Jyn scowls.  
  
“The officers are meeting to discuss next steps,” Cassian says bluntly. “What did you tell them that you didn’t tell me?”  
  
“Papa’s last words,” she says, lifting her chin defiantly.  
  
“Which were?”  
  
“He says the plans for the Death Star are on Scarif,” Jyn answers.  
  
He frowns. “Scarif? Where’s that?”  
  
“Outer rim territories,” Bodhi answers. “Beautiful place. Beaches, palm trees, ocean …”  
  
They both swivel to him. “You’ve been?”  
  
“Oh yeah,” he nods. “Spent half my career flying in and out of that place.”  
  
“What’s there?” Cassian asks urgently.  
  
“Imperial officers spend their holidays there,” Bodhi says lightly. “And there are universities, some kind of academy … oh, you mean?” He looks flustered. “And then there’s also the imperial storage facility – it’s like a giant library.”  
  
“In a tower?” Jyn asks.  
  
“Uh huh.”  
  
Cassian turns to Jyn. “What format are the plans in?” he asks. “How big? Are they password protected?”  
  
“I don’t know,” she snarls. “Papa didn’t have time to give me such details. If you’d wanted to know, maybe you shouldn’t have been so quick to kill him.”  
  
She takes a deep breath and marches past both men.  
  
On her bed is a cardboard box with all her confiscated weapons, including the blaster.  
  
“Bastard,” she swears at the empty room.  
  
She can’t sleep. Maybe she’s slept too long, maybe she’s afraid of nightmares. In the early hours of the morning, she wraps herself in a blanket and pads down the hall to Bodhi’s room. He lets her in, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.  
  
“I can’t sleep,” she announces. “Can I stay with you?”  
  
“Mmm,” Bodhi murmurs pulling her into bed with him.  
  
She should have fallen in love with Bodhi, Jyn thinks, wrapped in his arms. He’s handsome, he’s nice, he’s brave, and even though he’s messed up like they all are, it’s in a sweet, fixable way, not frozen to ice like some people.  
  
“It’s so cruel,” Bodhi mutters softly into her hair. “Galen loved you so much. Talked about you all the time. To end like this …”  
  
Jyn’s tears have dried up.  
  
“You should talk to Cassian,” Bodhi mumbles sleepily.  
  
“What? Why?”  
  
“He didn’t shoot,” Bodhi answers. “He had all the time in the world, but he didn’t do it.”  
  
“Doesn’t matter,” Jyn says. “He went up that hill meaning to obey his orders.”  
  
“He didn’t know about the bombing,” Bodhi says. “You should have heard him on the comms. Frantic.”  
  
She lies in Bodhi’s bed with his arm flung carelessly across her while she thinks of Cassian. God – was it just the night before? She remembers the feel of his body wrapped around hers – skin against skin. She can practically hear his soft words in her ear – ‘tell me what you like,’ he’d asked. ‘Let me make it good for you’. The way he touched her …  
  
“When did he get those orders?” she asks Bodhi softly. “Did a message come in after … after we got up?”  
  
“No,” Bodhi answers. “There was no message.”  
  
Jyn has figured that out already. Cassian had his orders before he slept with her. Whatever he actually ended up doing, he’d slept with her knowing that he was supposed to kill her father. He’d gone up the hill with a long range rifle in the sniper configuration AFTER climbing out of her bed.  
  
Idly she wonders what the alliance expected to learn from her as an informant.  
  
She thinks of his gentleness, his skill. He is a spy after all – he’s probably had to seduce women lots of time before. Maybe it meant nothing to him.


	5. Scarif

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope you weren't looking for one of those 'and they all lived' fix-its.

She dozes fretfully and ends up sleeping late.  
  
“Will I ruin your reputation, sneaking out of your room dressed like this?” she teases Bodhi.  
  
“Well, it might SURPRISE people who have been paying attention,” he grins.  
  
The council calls them into the meeting room to give them the courtesy of an explanation.  
  
“We’re evacuating,” one of the senators explains, her brow furrowed. “Separating our forces and hoping to evade the Empire’s attention.”  
  
“It’s pointless,” Jyn argues. “You can’t escape. Not from that kind of firepower. You won’t be safe anywhere.”  
  
“The risks are too high,” another senator sighs.  
  
“They’re only going to get higher,” she presses, furious. “The time to fight is now!”  
  
Nothing she says makes any difference. She and Bodhi walk towards the hanger, with no clear sense of direction.  
  
“We could do it,” Bodhi grumbles. “I still know the security codes, we have that captured Imperial ship, there’s no better time than now …”  
  
“There’s only two of us,” she points out.  
  
Baze and Chirrut are sitting on a box, next to the stolen Imperial ship. “You don't look happy,” Baze observes.  
  
“They prefer to surrender,” Jyn says bitterly.  
  
Baze snorts. “And you?”  
  
Chirrut nudges him. “She wants to fight,” he says.  
  
Bodhi looks around. “So do I,” he says. “We all do.”  
  
Chirrut smiles. “The Force is strong,” he says quietly.  
  
Jyn sighs. “It’s a suicide mission.”  
  
She’s distracted briefly by movement. Cassian steps out of the shadows, followed by a crowd.  
  
“They were never going to believe you,” he says softly.  
  
“I appreciate the support,” she snaps.  
  
“But I do,” he responds. “I believe you.”  
  
Jyn frowns.  
  
Cassian takes another step forward, treading carefully. “We'd like to volunteer,” he says, indicating the crowd behind him. “Some of us - well, most of us - we've all done terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion. Spies, saboteurs, assassins. Everything I did, I did for the Rebellion. And every time I walked away from something I wanted to forget, I told myself it was for a cause that I believed in. A cause that was worth it. Without that, we're lost. Everything we've done would have been for nothing. I couldn't face myself if I gave up now. None of us could.”  
  
Jyn hesitates. She looks back at Bodhi who looks intrigued.  
  
“There’s never going to be a better time,” Baze says suddenly. He stands. “We can take advantage of the chaos caused by evacuating.”  
  
Cassian nods. “Bodhi, you can fly this thing?” he asks, pointing to the stolen imperial fighter.  
  
Bodhi nods. “It will be crowded, a bit uncomfortable, but we’ll be OK.”  
  
Chirrut turns his sightless eyes towards the group. “Load up the imperial ship with all the ammunition we can get our hands on. Let’s get going.”  
  
The crowd scatters, but Cassian stands stock still, only feet from Jyn. He watches her.  
  
“It’s risky,” she tells him.  
  
“I know,” he agrees. “K2 has been telling everyone the odds.”  
  
K2 is standing quietly by the imperial ship. “Do you know how frustrating it is to be programmed for statistical analysis, but have your advice disregarded?” he complains.  
  
Cassian rolls his eyes. “Even K2 agrees that waiting won’t shorten the odds,” he says to Jyn.  
  
Jyn bites her lip. “I’m not used to people sticking around,” she admits.  
  
“Welcome home,” Cassian smiles.  
  
There are so many things that could wrong and so many points where someone in authority could discover their rebellion (against the rebellion no less) that Jyn is honestly surprised when Bodhi awkwardly talks his way past air traffic controls and they zoom into space.  
  
As Bodhi indicated, it’s uncomfortable in the shuttle. There are few places to sit other than the floor. The soldiers/rebels play cards and write messages to loved ones. A few drink (but not too much) and nibble on rations. A few sleep or try to rest.  
  
Jyn peeks into the cockpit where Bodhi is half dozing with his feet on the control panel and K2 is monitoring the instruments.  
  
“All on track?’ she asks.  
  
“If there was a problem, I would tell you,” K2 grumbles. “Well, I would tell Cassian and he would probably tell you, so same thing.”  
  
Shortly before they exit hyperspace, Cassian emerges, dressed in some sort of an Imperial uniform. He hands Jyn a bag. “Here, put this on, it should fit you.”  
  
She peers into the bag which appears to contain a different uniform, complete with black helmet.  
  
“You should shave,” K2 tells Cassian.  
  
Cassian rubs his chin. “I didn’t bring a razor.”  
  
“Imperial officers are usually clean-shaven,” K2 continues. “You’ll stand out.”  
  
Bodhi snorts. “It’s the least of our worries,” he says. “And besides, Jyn likes the look, right?”  
  
There’s an uncomfortable moment of silence while Jyn wishes she could vanish. Even Cassian looks slightly flustered.  
  
K2’s gears whirl. “What does Jyn’s opinion matter?” he asks peevishly. “It’s imperial forces you have to fool.”  
  
“I’ll just go get dressed,” Jyn says, fleeing.  
  
Bodhi manages to talk his way through the shield and onto the landing pad. Cassian’s crew dispatches the imperial welcoming party with practiced ease. They strip the bodies of weapons and communications devices.  
  
Cassian, Jyn, and K2 stroll casually away from the landing pad and enter the shuttle to the tower.  
  
“I have a bad feeling about this,” K2 says mournfully.  
  
“I take it you’ve done undercover work before?” Cassian asks Jyn.  
  
She nods.  
  
“That’s it?” K2 grumbles. “No pithy words of advice?”  
  
“She was trained by Saw Gerrera,” Cassian says calmly. “What am I going to teach her in the next few minutes?”  
  
Jyn feels a moment of warmth at the praise. As a matter of fact, she has done lots of undercover work – Saw loved using women and often said that they made better spies because the Empire was so chauvinistic that they never took women seriously.  
  
They make their way into the tower. Several people do look at Cassian but he has a way of narrowing his eyes, setting his jaw, and looking fierce and grim. No-one stops them. They walk in fast and calmly as though they know where they are going.  
  
“This is a soft target,” he says in an elevator. “Staffed by the sons of rich industrialists playing soldier and men past their prime, waiting for retirement.”  
  
“How do you know?” Jyn asks. “You’ve never been here before.”  
  
“Been to places like this,” he answers.  
  
They trick an imperial droid into following them into a secluded room. Jyn stands guard while Cassian disables the droid and K2 taps into its circuits.  
  
“I know which way to go,” K2 announces. Jyn wonders if it’s just her imagination, but does he seem a bit shaken?  
  
Cassian is on the rebel comms link ordering the crew to ‘light the place up’.  
  
“The odds are still terrible,” K2 complains as they head in the opposite direction.  
  
Jyn is wearing an imperial comms link stolen from one of the guards that greeted their shuttle on the landing pad. On it, she can hear people shouting excitedly about explosions and blaster fire.  
  
“But the odds must be getting better, right?” Cassian asks.  
  
“Well …” K2 grumbles. “Marginally so.”  
  
“Really?” Jyn asks.  
  
“There were several steps along our assumed path where I calculated a 50% chance of being captured or killed,” K2 says sadly. “As we’ve managed to evade those traps, the odds are improving. They’re still abysmal though.”  
  
Cassian steps into the control room that K2 has selected as having the least security. Indeed, there’s only two guards lazily monitoring the screens and frowning in some confusion at the apparent panic outside.  
  
“Do you know what’s going on?” one of them asks Cassian, assuming that he’s a legitimate imperial officer.  
  
“I do,” he says. “Apparently you’re supposed to go downstairs. They’re calling everyone to muster in the courtyard.” He points.  
  
The second guard frowns in confusion and puts a hand lightly on the blaster on his belt.  
  
Jyn steps behind him and slips a thin thread of wire around his neck. One hard yank and the man is down, thrashing, but silent. She kneels on his body until she is sure he’s dead.  
  
The first guard startles, but before he can react, Cassian casually fires his blaster point blank and the guard joins his partner in a heap on the floor.  
  
“Good thing you didn’t let them go,” K2 says. “We need their fingerprints to open the doors.”  
  
“Are the odds getting better now?” Cassian asks.  
  
“Depends on the end goal,” K2 answers honestly. “Odds are longer if you hope for both to survive. And Jyn is so unpredictable. HER odds …”  
  
“Kay!”  
  
“I’m just saying …”  
  
“The goal is to get the plans,” Cassian reminds him.  
  
“Long odds,” K2 complains. “Too many factors to control – how big is the file, what’s the file name, password …?”  
  
“Are you TRYING to wind him up?” Jyn hisses.  
  
“Just making sure his circuits are working,” Cassian grins. “At least he can still do math.”  
  
Cassian’s comms links hums with an incoming message. Bodhi is reporting that rebel fighters have entered Scarif airspace. Cassian pumps his fist.  
  
“Did you expect that to happen?” Jyn asks.  
  
“No,” Cassian answers. “But rebel forces are not as regimented or disciplined as a regular army – sometimes that’s a good thing. They can change their minds and act fast.”  
  
K2 plugs into a port in the control room while Cassian and Jyn run to the window overlooking the data bases. Jyn skims through the list of passwords that K2 forwards to her. The odds ARE unbelievably long. How in the world will she recognize what her papa might have called the plans?  
  
Most are fairly obvious, ‘hyperspace tracking, navigational systems …’  
  
She stops, her eyes go back to an earlier name, re-reading the list, her heart fluttering.  
  
“What?” Cassian asks.  
  
“Stardust,” she reads out loud, hardly hoping. “That’s it.”  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
“Because it’s me,” she says, her throat tight. “It’s his nickname for me.”  
  
Cassian flashes a grin.  
  
Finding the file might improve their odds, but everything else seems to be falling apart. On the imperial comms piece in her ear, Jyn can hear people shouting that they are under attack. K2 is facing down his own adversities. There’s blaster fire. Lights flicker. The remote arm that Cassian is trying to operate quits working.  
  
K2 locks the heavy door between them.  
  
“You can still transmit the files,” the droid explains between blasts. “But you have to let the rebels know that it’s coming. And the shield has got to come down.”  
  
Cassian is on his comms piece talking to Bodhi, telling him what he needs to do. “Make it happen!” he says urgently.  
  
Jyn shoots out the window. The drop down is truly terrifying. She pauses, gulps. There’s no soft landing.  
  
She half expects Cassian to try to take over, send her someplace safe … but he strips off his imperial uniform and nods at her to go first.  
There’s no point in waiting. It isn’t going to get any easier. She takes a deep shuddering breath, imagines jumping over something small and manageable and takes a flying leap out of the window. Her hands slip, she scrambles to grab onto something. Luckily, the wall is covered with little handles and ledges and she grabs one and hangs tight, breathing deeply.  
  
“You ok?” Cassian calls.  
  
“It’s a long jump,” she warns him.  
  
She climbs out of the way and Cassian jumps. He hisses in pain and almost falls but grabs onto a piece of metal. “I’m good,” he tells her.  
  
She climbs to the file, grabs it, almost drops it, but recovers. Cassian is right behind her.  
  
“Go,” he urges her.  
  
Blasterfire comes out of no-where and Jyn ducks, clinging the side.  
  
Cassian fires back, apparently he can see the shooter.  
  
“Go!” he yells at Jyn.  
  
Jyn climbs, her hands sore, her arms aching, her heart thudding.  
  
The unseen shooter fires again and Cassian cries out – a short yelp.  
  
Jyn looks and sees him fall, hitting a barrier on the way down with a sickening thud. He lands on a metal platform several feel lower than where they had started and lies motionless.  
  
Jyn presses her forehead against the cool metal of the tower that she’s clinging to. She thinks of K2 saying … the odds are worse if you want both of you to survive …  
  
It’s not as if she hasn’t seen people die before. In one heist, her partner was so close to her when he was shot that bits of his brain and blood ended up in her hair. She’s lost friends, lovers, guys she’s gambled with, and people whose names she hardly knew.  
  
She remembers Saw telling her to honour their memories. “You can never bring them home,” he’d said. “You can only make them proud of you.”  
  
The shooter has apparently given up (maybe he can't see her) or maybe is coming around the other side to shoot her. Jyn understands that she has to move and move fast. She pushes aching muscles to climb up as fast as she can. She will think of Cassian later.  
  
At the top, there is a terrifying kind of gate. It opens and closes like the deadly petals of an obscene flower. Its knife edges slash the air. Snick, swoosh, snick.  
  
Jyn counts. She can’t wait long. Her arms are trembling with fatigue. She will have only one chance.  
  
She counts again to make sure she has her timing right.  
  
The gate snicks open and she launches herself desperately through it, grabbing for a handhold.  
  
And she’s through.  
  
The tower is taller than anything she’s been in. It sways slightly. She kind of wishes she could crawl, but she stays on her feet and staggers to the control panel.  
  
The sky looks oddly … cracked. It’s like being inside a snow globe. Jyn guesses that previously the shield was clear enough that the sky would have looked normal, but now spidery dark lines zig zag in the sky. She hopes to hell that the rebel forces have damaged it enough for her message to get out.  
  
There’s an aerial dog fight underway as well. She ducks reflexively as three fighter jets swoosh menacingly close, their engines shrieking. There’s the rat-tat-tat chatter of machine gun fire and flashes of bright lights.  
  
Jyn concentrates on her task.  
  
The goddamn control panel is faulty or something. She bangs on it in frustration. The screen flickers and shows an image of the dish. It needs re-alignment. She’s come so far that she won’t give up now, but it takes all of her remaining courage to stagger out on the walkway, on the swaying tower, amidst reckless fighters, and random gunfire, to adjust the satellite dish.  
  
Waaay down, so far down she almost doesn’t dare look, there are fireballs on the beach and forests on fire.  
  
Jyn talks to herself, urging herself on. “So many people have fought for this to happen. If you fuck this up … you have to make Saw proud. Make Papa proud … Cassian … oh hell …”  
  
The tower trembles.  
  
She crouches on the platform, willing her heart to steady. There’s a crash and half the walkway falls away … Jyn is scrambling, digging her fingers into the little metal holes for grip. The wind whistles around her and the emptiness of the space below pulls at her like a riptide tugs a swimmer down into the ocean. Her fingers are slick with blood but she manages to haul herself up and she lies for a moment catching her breath. There’s no-one here to watch and she doesn’t care anymore so she crawls, half sobbing towards the control panel.  
  
Just one more thing to do.  
  
As she gets shakily to her feet, a man emerges from a sliding door.  
  
She blinks at him in shock. His image is burned into her memory like a tattoo – the man who shot her mother and took her father hostage. She wonders if she’s going mad.  
  
He points a blaster at her. “Who are you?” he asks furiously.  
  
Jyn glares. “You know who I am.”  
  
He frowns.  
  
“I’m Jyn Erso,” she announces. “Galen Erso’s daughter. And I’ve just told the whole world how to defeat your new toy. You’ve lost.”  
  
“The shield is up,” he snarls at her. “No-one’s receiving any kind of message.”  
  
He shoots and Jyn flinches. But it’s Krennic who looks shocked. He stumbles and falls forward, the unused blaster clattering to the ground.  
  
In the shadows behind Krennic, it’s Cassian, half-standing, half leaning on a post, with a blaster in his hand.  
  
Jyn blinks tears from her eyes and seriously wonders if she’s hallucinating.  
  
“Come on,” he waves her over to the control panel. “One more thing to do.”  
  
She runs over to the panel and bangs on the screen. It flickers and lights up, all systems go. She presses the button for transmit and prays, reaching for the pendant around her neck.  
  
Transmission sent and received, the panel indicates.  
  
Jyn turns to Cassian, drinking him in with her eyes. “I saw you fall,” she says.  
  
He nods. “I found another way up,” he answers. There’s blood on his temple and his breathing is rough, but he is very definitely alive. “They’re evacuating,” he says. “We need to get out of here.”  
  
The elevator is out of order so they take the stairs. It’s a long, slow climb down. Cassian goes slowly, wincing and rubbing his side on occasion. His breathing is labored. Every few minutes, a cool mechanical voice announces that the tower is being evacuated. ‘All loyal citizens should depart immediately,’ she says. ‘Leave everything behind. Do not concern yourself with destroying documents.’  
  
“What does that mean?” Jyn wonders after multiple announcements.  
  
“They’re probably going to blow up the tower,” Cassian explains. “Rather than risk rebels getting hold of the documents.”  
  
Down, down, down they go. Jyn’s legs are rubber, she can hardly believe that Cassian is still moving.  
  
“What’s the damage?” she asks him when they stop for a break.  
  
“Ribs,” he says, rubbing one side. “And back, also twisted my knee.”  
  
He can’t get Bodhi on the communicator link. Or anyone else. “Could be just a comms failure,” he says unconvincingly.  
  
Jyn can think of more likely reasons why they can’t raise any of the rebels, but she just nods.  
  
Near the bottom of the tower, they stop again to catch their breath.  
  
“Bodhi said something on the flight,” Cassian says, his eyes closed, leaning against the wall, his breath rattling. “He said you thought … you thought … that I had orders …”  
  
Jyn flinches.  
  
“I want you to know that’s not true,” Cassian says softly. “No orders, spoken or not, assumed … not .... What happened between us was just between us.”  
  
“He shouldn’t have said anything,” Jyn says.  
  
“He cares about you,” Cassian murmurs.  
  
“But, you had other orders, didn’t you?” Jyn asks. She should leave well enough alone, but since they’re in confession mode …  
  
He nods. “That’s more complicated,” he grunts. “I’m not in the habit of disobeying orders ‘specially when I don’t have all the details.”  
  
“Uh huh.”  
  
“So I went up the hill to observe,” he says, opening his eyes.  
  
Jyn nods. She has no tears left.  
  
“And what I saw …”  
  
“What?”  
  
“There was some kind of confrontation,” Cassian recalls. “And Galen … your father … he stepped in front of a team of engineers as if to protect them and Krennic had the troopers shoot them anyways. Execution style.”  
  
Jyn remembers the rattle of blaster fire that she’d heard. “I TOLD you,” she says.  
  
He nods. “I know.”  
  
They reach the bottom and step into the blinding glare of sunlight. Everything is eerily quiet. There’s no sign of life, no sentient beings, no droids, no transports of any sort. The sky is bare and empty – the aerial battle is over. Far in the distance, they can see plumes of smoke, but clearly the land battle is also over.  
  
“Any shuttles?” Cassian asks squinting.  
  
“Can you fly in your current state?” Jyn asks  
  
“Can you fly at all?” he asks.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Then I’m better than no pilot at all,” he retorts.  
  
There’s nothing in sight.  
  
They walk around the side of the tower, off the harsh, baking pavement to soft sand. Jyn takes a moment to appreciate the amazing beauty of the place. The sand squishes under her feet, palms trees sway gently, waves lap softly on the beach. She squints up into the sky hoping for some sign of the rebellion, but spots instead, an ominous moon-like object.  
  
Wordlessly, she points.  
  
Cassian makes a face. “I was afraid of that.”  
  
He takes her hand and they walk slowly onto the beach.  
  
There’s a green flash on the horizon like lightning and the ground rumbles under their feet. Cassian stumbles and Jyn kneels next to him.  
  
“Are you afraid?” she asks.  
  
“Yeah,” he says. “But mostly I’m angry. I finally have something to live for, and …”  
  
She reaches for him, burying her face in the crook of his neck as the horizon trembles and buckles in the distance.  
  
He wraps his arms around her and holds her close.


End file.
